I love Brit interior company Mini Moderns, and I also happen to love the book “Buddha of Suburbia” by Hanif Kureishi; so I almost hyperventilated when I heard that the Mini Modern’s new collection for 2012 is a homage to that wonderful book! For those of you who haven’t read the Buddha of Suburbia (shame on you), it’s a fabulous roller-coaster ride that ducks and dives through the rich fabric of British life in the 1970s. The book takes a magnifying glass to the social tensions, unemployment, sexual politics and the reality of the growing diversity and ethnicity of 70’s London, and also captures the pressures and excitement of being young at this incredible time. It’s like a social document really; with the narrative starting out in the early 70’s hippie hangover phase, and then travelling right through to glam rock, punk and eventually winding up at the outset of the Thatcher years.

And herein lies the genius of the this new collection by the Mini Moderns. These designs are based on the distinct and drastically different phases of this multi layered decade. There will be four designs in total, starting off with the recently launched “Camberwell Beauty” (the featured wallpaper in this post) which Keith from Mini Moderns recently described to me as “Biba meets a butterfly collector on the set of the 70’s Edwardian drama Upstairs Downstairs!” (a description which I couldn’t possibly improve on.)

Mini Moderns duo Keith Stephenson and Mark Hampshire explain how the new design came about: “For our new collection we’ve gone back to the decade we grew up in – the 1970s. It was a period of transition for British culture – when Biba and Bowie gave way to bin-bags and Buzzcocks. The design has a decadent look that reflects the start of the decade, whilst the symbol of the butterfly acts as a visual metaphor for the cultural transformation we associate with the period.”

I have already heard a bit about the next design, which thus far only has a working title, but sounds absolutely incredible – although I’m sworn to secrecy, so you will have to watch this space!